SAGE Dining Services pose for a photo behind the food bar.
By Claire Liu ’28
Feeding hundreds of students three meals a day is no easy feat, and the renovation of the Hill House Dining Hall has added another layer of difficulty to this difficult task. Until the spring of 2025, SAGE Dining Services (SAGE) staff face the challenge of preparing meals in a temporary kitchen adjacent to the transitory dining hall.
Many staff have recognized the difficulty of preparing a similar variety and quantity of food in the limited space of the makeshift kitchen. Mr. Aaron Vertucci, a prep cook, said, “It’s a little harder because it is a temporary kitchen, so we don’t have as many resources.”
The SAGE staff also have to move more frequently for meals than before because the temporary dining hall is farther from other locations on campus that need to be supplied with food, such as the Tuck Shop or Lanphier Cafe. Ms. Katelyn Testa, a cook and prep server, agreed with Mr. Vertucci. She said, “The spaces that we have to cook in are limited, … [and] the fact that we have to run across buildings is one of the [biggest] challenges.”
The location of the temporary dining hall adds another level of complexity in the form of managing logistics. Mr. Andrew Welles, the Assistant Food Service Director, said, “There’s a lot of moving parts, stuff coming from different places, baking in different places,” thus rendering the act of getting food where it needs to go more difficult.
Despite the hurdles the temporary dining hall poses, the SAGE crew has worked hard to prepare the best meals possible. Ms. Testa said, “We are … there for each other and helping each other out when we’re stressed out.” Mr. Thomas Cricco, a cook, elaborated, “We’ve been together for a long time, so we work together as friends. We try our best to help each other out where we can and when we can.”
Mr. Antonio Lopez Arcos, arguably SAGE’s most famous grill cook and runner among students as well as the head of the infamous “Antonio’s Angels,” said, “I [go] out of my way to help everybody, and that makes me happy.” His enthusiasm inspires both his coworkers and the wider School community: “I have been doing this for 10 years, … and I love [it] because I love what I do. It is not a job; this is my life, and I enjoy it.”
The Hill House dining hall is slated to have its grand re-opening in the spring of 2025, and the SAGE crew is excited to work in their newly renovated space. Over three times its original size (from 1,600 to 4,850 square feet), the servery will be more accessible and efficient for SAGE staff and dining hall frequenters alike.
SAGE staff are looking forward to seeing the new space. Mr. Roshan Hargrove, a new prep cook and server, said, “I’m definitely excited for it; I want to see what it looks like because this [the temporary dining hall] is the only place I’ve known.” Mr. Cricco added, “The old equipment was breaking very easily up in Hill House; it was really outdated. So, I’m very excited.”
The next time you are in the dining hall, take a moment to savor the food prepared for you; the incredibly resilient SAGE team has gone above and beyond to ensure that our stomachs are full and our hearts are happy!
